I'm new to using this software and to imaging harddrives. Please tell me if what I'm planning to do below is likely to work and what I need to be aware of.

We have four computers, all running on Windows 10.

I bought a 4 TB external harddrive to be used exclusively to store image files of all four computers, to be used if any one of the computer's hard drives should fail, in which case I would purchase a new harddrive of equal or larger size, install it in the computer, and restore that computer's image onto the new harddrive.

The harddrive info on the four computers is:

Capacity Used Remaining

Computer 1: 1,810 GB441 GB1,380 GB

Computer 2: 1,810 GB247 GB1,560 GB

Computer 3: 568 GB238 GB330 GB

Computer 4: 911 GB177 GB733 GB

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Totals: 5,099 GB 1,103 GB 4,003 GB

None of the computers is partitioned. All have only C: drives.

Based on what I've read so far, my plan is to use Disk Backup to create each image file. As I say above, I plan to store them all on a single external harddrive dedicated to this purpose alone.

Does my plan appear to be workable? What pitfalls, if any, do I need to be aware of?

Seems ok. Don't run back ups at the same time. You probably only want the new external drive writing one back up at a time. If you only have a C drive without additional partitions, you could use either system or disk image.

How will the new external be connected to your network? I'm assuming you are using a home network. If not you will have to do each back up manually as you connect the drive to each. If hooked into a network, you'll need its IP address to set up your schedule and have it as your backup destination. All can be saved on one drive. Just give each back up a unique name.

Not a network. I'll be hooking the external HD up to one computer at a time to make the image. I want the images so that if a comptuer's HD fails, I won't have to install the programs one at a time. Separate from the images, which I'll update if programs are added or deleted, I'll be using another program to regularly back up the data files.

I realize that if I do have to use an image, I will then have to replace the out-of-date data files with the more up-to-date ones.

Am I correct, then, that other than a replacement HD needing to be large enough for the image that's being installed on it, there are no other considerations as to the type of HD, etc.?

You can also use Aomei incremental (disk) backups instead of another program to regularly backup. That way you also build up a file history so you can go back to previous versions of the data files. But that takes more space on the external drive than just a file copy of the last version. Which can be done with Aomei too (File Sync).

I'd create 4 folders on the external drive, one for each PC. Say PC1, PC2, etc or use a name for each. If you have AOMEI on each PC, then one at a time, plug in the external HD (probably should be a USB type) and create a disk (or system) full backup of the C drive and browse to the external drive and folder that matches that PC as the backup destination. Name the backup but no need to set a schedule. Run the backup. Repeat for each PC.

Since you're doing this manually, you might want to repeat this process maybe once a week or month. You've already created a backup set so no need to repeat this process. You just have to plug in the external HD and run it. After you create a new full image, you could then just delete the older image. This way you will have a fairly current image of each PC to restore if necessary and not need a huge drive for storage.

A 2TB external USB HD should be sufficient. Seagate and WD both have these.